Burden with a Frostbitten Self-Consciousness
by TheDarkFlygon
Summary: [Original series, S2, light canon divergence] There is no way his aching chest is a good excuse to bother his upperclassmen. Better keep everything to himself so he doesn't become a burden to anyone but him again. (This doesn't feel right, though).


"Don't make your senpais worry, Yuuki" is one of the first things he's been told by his parents when he first started middle school. It was on a lukewarm spring day, wind blowing right into his face with hair pushed way backward on his scalp, slipping through his clothes and brushing against his skin. "They'll have other things to do and think about, so don't bother them unless it's necessary, okay? You're a good boy, I trust you not to concern them with you." It's the last thing his mother has told him, so he clutches her words against his chest to feel their warmth over and over again until the hot-water bottle goes cold.

It's icy and it hurts, yet he feels the need to keep it against his skin, even if it gives him frostbite.

After all, as far as he knows, Yuuki's always been a bother to everyone around him. He's an unwanted child: his parents are always busy being somewhere better than their hometown (it's only his, he knows that too), he's just a weight they need to take care of. The concept of home feels foreign to him, the kind of things his classmates and teammates talk about but that he's never been able to truly understand. They live with their parents, their siblings, their pet; but he has no parent to take care of him, no sibling to talk to and no pet to walk and clean after.

It's normal, after all: he's a burden for the people around him. It's only fair that he bothers them as little as possible.

He actually likes talking to other persons and kids around him. He's too talkative: no matter what he starts speaking about, he tends to ramble, to get lost in thoughts and only he can make out what he's just said. He wants to have friends and spend time with them, discuss things and high-five them when they succeed at something, game or homework well done; but he doesn't dare coming up to people and asking them for it. After all, he could be bothering them if he did that.

As such, he tries to stay silent most of the time. He does have comrades, though, now, and it's a breath of fresh air. The one time he had the guts to talk to someone first, it was to join the soccer club of the school to make some friends: he's a rookie at the sport. He's watched it before that, grew an admiration for team captains, wants to be a leader with charisma and this capacity to motivate everyone around him. He shook the hand of the third-year captain and wondered how and why they had accepted him, yet didn't question it: he was just happy to feel included, _wanted_.

It's a rare feeling unlike anything else, after all.

Turns out he sucks at being a midfielder. He has low stamina, doesn't have the best accuracy, can't shoot strongly like the teammates he shares a part of the field with; but it's fine. It's fine because they talk to him, ask him how his day has been, if he needs help with anything at school (on that, he does just right: he's a good student, he studies every evening when going back to the dorm, makes sure to learn his lessons and do his drills for the next class, because he can't bother the teachers too). They're all nice with him, even if he's younger, and he's afraid he's bothering them because he's all new to this and doesn't know how to play as well as they do; but when he asks, they all say it's fine, that they're happy he's there.

When he asks to become a reserve goalkeeper, inspired by Raimon's Endou, his charisma, his capacity to motivate his teammates no matter the situation, they all strangely accept immediately. They tell him it's fine, that he seems more of a keeper to them anyway, that they were worried about the way he breathes after he's run on the field for practice matches. He apologies for worrying them over and over again, hoping the stain of his fault will eventually disappear from how much he's scrubbing it. In the end, he became their main goalkeeper, even if he's the only first-year on the team.

When he joins Raimon, it's because he admires the rookie team who's won in the Football Frontier and fights aliens trying to destroy their country's schools one after the other. By the time they reach Fukuoka to retrieve a secret copybook, they won against Gemini Storm and are on their way to defeat Epsilon, pumping his club's veins with adrenaline and hope in the future. He gets to show Endou his God Hand, feels awkward about it, enjoys playing against the people he admires so much, discovers how his idol is the real deal. "Never met your idols" doesn't make sense in his mind, even as Raimon traverses the desert with their captain stuck on the roof.

By a miracle, he manages to ask Endou if he can join Raimon. It's the team who has insisted: to them, he's too talented for them, the country needs them and, as such, so does Raimon, the best team in Japan. He's surprised everyone at Raimon accepts him, that even their coach doesn't reject his request. He leaves his team with a part of his heart breaking, even if they're smiling and waving at him when he leaves Yokato in the Inazuma Caravan; even though the pretty landscapes he's never seen and the light-hearted banter of the caravan make him quickly forget about his guilt.

And it's because they've all been so nice to him, welcoming, accepting, warm, arms wide open; that Yuuki can't make anyone at Raimon concern for him. It's just not right. It's his business to take care of, on his own, he's the only one who should be bothered about this in the first place.

That's how it works for him, even if his lungs are starting to burn.

It starts with a stuffed nose and an itching throat. It's a familiar feeling, very much so: it happens to him every winter, when the immune system is tired and the temperatures keep dropping until March comes around. Usually, his teammates would have told him to stay put and just watch practice so it doesn't get worse; but this is no usual time. They're trying to win against The Genesis and Aliea as a whole, they don't have the time to do rest.

He doesn't like outright lying, because he's learnt that lying is bad and the best way to get people away from you, so when Tsunami asks him if he's fine after a light coughing fit, he just says what's on his mind: it's a little summer cold, nothing wrong with that, he feels good otherwise. He wants to learn the technique from the secret notebook more than anything, after all, so he takes care not to worry everyone, take breaks when he can and puts on a mask hoping nobody ever asks him about it.

People do, unfortunately, but he always responds to them the same way he's responded to his friend.

Yuuki is bad at lying to himself too, so when his itching throat starts making him cough and when his vision swims if he gets up too quickly, when the air starts becoming too hot around him and when his skin can't decide if it's feeling too cold or too warm, when he sweats without doing any effort, he knows he's getting worse, but his response doesn't change by much. It's just a _bad_ cold, now. It's starting to learn more towards the fabricated side of half-truths, and he can hear his father scold him before leaving for three months, yet the context can't help it and he needs to be there for the team.

Is he a part of them, on second thought? He was appointed titular goalkeeper because the team needed to become an offensive powerhouse and Endou became a libero as a result. He saw Aphrodi destroy himself against Chaos when he had himself been too busy being unable to stop at least eleven shoots. He's the weakest link, this much he knows, and he can't help but wonder if they don't resent him for this. It's fine if they do: if they don't, then what prevents them from realizing he's only dragging them down?

The black thoughts clog his mind's drain, but he doesn't say anything. Everyone here is his senpai: they've all been there for longer than he has, the sole exception being Tsunami, who even then is two or three years older than he is. If he even makes it obvious that he has doubts and his body starting to fail on him at the worst moments, he'll start worrying his upperclassmen. That's wrong, he's aware of that, he's learnt his lesson; as such, he stays quiet about it, half-lies to everyone asking him and hopes his coughing fits stop being so painful. It's easier for everyone if that's how he rolls.

Even with his resolutions taken, Tsunami's worried stares make him weaver in his decisions. It seems like his plan hasn't worked properly, because he's asked more and more often if he really is fine. The only thing stopping them from removing him from the goalpost is the coach insisting everything is also fine, despite her frowned eyebrows and betraying glances at him. He's the weakest link, so Endou can replace him anytime, but they need him there so they can win against The Genesis. That has to be the reason why everyone is getting worried around him.

They're worried for the team's future, the _country's_, and their goals, it's normal. The stakes are just way above his head for him to fully understand.

His chest is aching as soon as he wakes up and his breathing is shallow, it's like he has a constant asthma attack. His nerves are exhausted of supporting the charade that it's all just a very, very bad cold; yet he can't help but outright lie to his teammates because he can't break his principle never to worry someone older or more experienced than him. The worse he gets, the more distant he feels from everyone and everything else because of his senses downgraded constantly, inexorably. His eyes are filled with tears, his ears with cotton, his limbs are stiff and he's having the hardest time even getting air in.

When Tsunami asks him if what's wrong, he doesn't have the energy left to pretend like he's fine, so he turns away and says he doesn't feel right, but that it's not important. They're a team, he's just a part of it, and he needs to move along with everyone else in unison if he doesn't want everything they've built up until now to fall apart in a violent fashion. He expects a burning stare, or something of the kind, but instead all he gets is the sympathizing gazes of everyone and he feels stupid because that's when he realizes he has worried them all along.

Everyone stares at him, mostly in disbelief, but he's too occupied by everything failing on him that he doesn't know what to make of it, or react to it in fact, so he just coughs half a lung out and awkwardy smiles under his mask. He's never been good with people's attention, he doesn't know what to make out of it any time this kind of situation happens. Instead, he fumbles with his hands as everyone, to his surprise, tells him it's fine.

That they're not this desperate for time, that he matters too and so does his health, that it's fine if he doesn't play immediately and if they have to postpone the assault against Aliea for a couple of days. He doesn't reply, but they guess and cancel his questions before they can pop up to his mind in the shapes of actual words, and their words continue to deafen him from their kindness.

His vision swims too badly for him to see anything when Tsunami suddenly pulls him against his chest, but the coldness of anybody else's skin is the most welcome feeling he could be requesting for right now. The voices swirl around him too, yet he knows they're the right kind of warm as they embrace him, concern finally feeling good. It stills stings like a bandage getting ripped suddenly from a healing wound, but it's a sting he's accepting to feel if it's to finally be a part of the team. Hearing it from others is a whole other deal to him than lying to himself about it.

But he finally gives into the exhaustion and sickness, whose nature he has no idea of anymore, letting himself fall into other arms as he can finally smile honestly under his mask, without feeling like a bother anymore. He'll learn his lesson about worrying people or not later, when he'll feel like he's fine enough to do it. For now, he's going to profit off of everyone telling him he's needed, wanted and welcome. It gives meaning to his efforts, after all.

It's nice to feel loved.


End file.
